A message about Spam

Networking has changed. People are far more likely to connect with people than ever before without any real prior relationship, but at the same time, they are quicker than ever before to ditch people. The second or third message is key, leading straight to block, disconnect or unfollow, and the biggest reason given for doing so is spam. Spam, by my definition is all about relevance, and no deceptions, but a growing number of people seem to miss out on this simple point. Everyone has their own spam threshold, and what falls in to this category.
In my streams, this is what I see as spam from messages I’ve received in the last week:
 An invitation to an event which further exploration revealed I was unable to apply for a ticket because they were only open to specific job titles. If I don’t fit the audience, don’t send the invite. Spam.
 A link to a blog on twitter labelled as “This is an interesting post.” The link goes to the sharers post, calling their own blog interesting. Sorry, I see that as a deception. Spam.
 Joining me to multiple Facebook groups without asking, and posting the same content in each group. I only need to belong to one, duplicate updates are just annoying. Spam.
 Sending me a job on LinkedIn that I’m clearly unqualified for, or far too experienced to do. Do some research first. No research? Spam.
 Join me in to groups which are clearly not in my interest area. I know Facebook lets you do this, but please invite me first. No invite? Spam.
 Invite me to join a LinkedIn group I already belong to, or I don’t qualify for, Spam.
 Posting a link on a hashtag I follow where the post has no relevance to the group is just annoying. I follow hashtags to get relevant content. There’s no rules, but please try to keep the streams clean,. No relevance? Spam.
 Using multiple twitter accounts to put the same message on a hashtag stream. If I see the same message multiple times on different accounts, I’m turned off the link. It’s Spam.
Just a few of my thoughts of the posts I get that make me think spam. Think relevance before you post.
Bill

1 comment for “A message about Spam”

The social channels have changed the way we (can) communicate. It is super easy to ‘say’ things online now. Anyone can publish anything anywhere – and it is all a click away. The easier it is to publish in a social media channel the faster adoption of it and the quicker growth it had. “Easy” in the socialmedai world become the guarantee of millions of users. Simple. Fast. Real Time… the simplest and easiest channels outgrew the more complex ones. No Nings, My Spaces and Bebos, but supereasy Facebook and ultra-easy twitter.

Even stuff like social sharing had a tremendous success. Remember Digg? The success of it was purely in the fact that it was easy to use. After millions of us signed up, only then we realised that we actually do not really need it, regardless how easy it is.

Recruiters started tweeting jobs (some still do) like mad when they realised they can do it 100% automated. They even started retweeting them by some automated tweeting services. All because they could. Not really because they wanted to – or saw any real benefit to it. They just could, and they did.

All this ‘Easy’ philosophy of the social media resulted that we can all effortlessly publish tons of content in the social media, and effectively bombard anyone we target with it. We could as well start screaming on the main square tomorrow, and annoy unsuspected by-passers with whatever we have to say. But we do not do that. We learned that we ourselves need to respect others, to get their respect. Hence no one shouts at each other on the street.

In the social media – we all shout! And we do it in any super easy way the social media channels let us do it. We put people in the groups, invite, …. In general we annoy one another. It is only when you get annoyed like this, you realise, what is the annoying behaviour in the social media. The Pioneers of the social media like you Bill, will be the first one who will realise this. Your social footprint is endless, your reach is huge and your network is actually bigger than what the developers of those social media channels designed their tools for.

In time most of people will learn. The early signs are here already. All this Tweet-Job-Search services are more or less dead. When you see someone ‘Shouting’ in the social media now, you know – He is new to this. He doesn’t get it. He gets ignored or un-followed. Exactly as your ‘Rules’ with the description of the non-tolerated behaviour above defines.

Just 2 years ago recruiters have been trained how to tweet their jobs. Yes it did wonders for their SEO. Google changed algorithms and SEO benefit is gone. Tweeting jobs just annoy people today. Today we train recruiters to stop tweeting their jobs. We train them to stop doing what we trained them only two years ago!